Between sessions at AgriFutures EvokeAg in Perth this week, the hallway conversations were often as useful as the sessions themselves, which is the usual story at an event that brings together a concentrated cross-section of the agtech and agricultural innovation world over a couple of dense days.
Bobby Miller was there for Ruminati, catching up with a range of organisations working across different parts of the producer support landscape. The teams at AgronomEye and FarmLab were among the familiar faces, and both are doing important work on the data capture and agronomic insight side of things that complements what Ruminati is building on the emissions reporting end.
Carmel Onions and Natasha Greenwood from CommBank gave Ruminati a mention, which was a welcome bit of recognition and a reflection of how far the conversation with CommBank has progressed. The pilot project we’ve been working on together is focused on understanding how farm-level emissions data can be made useful and accessible for agricultural finance, with the producer remaining the one who decides who sees it, and the progress being made there is encouraging.
Jackson Hewett from AuctionsPlus also did a strong job covering the event, and it was a good reminder that the connections made at gatherings like this can turn up in unexpected places down the track.
EvokeAg is useful because it gathers people who are thinking seriously about where agricultural technology is heading, from producers and investors to larger businesses, researchers and startups. It creates conditions for the kind of conversation that doesn’t happen easily when everyone is operating in their own lane, which matters for producers because the tools and services they rely on are built by organisations that spend much of the year working separately. The opportunities that open up over those two days usually take months to appreciate fully.
There is more coming out of Perth, and on the CommBank pilot in particular, that we’re looking forward to sharing soon.
